


Escape - 3 Way POV

by GachMoBrea



Series: My Father, Barry Allen [6]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (But the Same Story), 3 Chapters with 3 POV, AU, Alternate Universe, Barry is Len's DAD, Breakfast, Fake/Pretend CSI Work, Father!Barry, Gen, Go Fish, Grandfather!Joe, Little!Len, OOC, Running away from home, Series, StepMom!Iris, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GachMoBrea/pseuds/GachMoBrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Len makes it out of the house....<br/>....Three Chapters with Thee POV (Len's, Joe's, Barry's)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Len's POV

A loud banging noise woke Len from his dreamless sleep. Yawning, he rubs the fog from his mind and takes in his surroundings.  
Still in the children's room. Still a child.  
Nothing's changed.  
"Joe!" Barry's voice hushes loudly from upstairs. "What are you doing down there?"  
"Why did you and Iris have to move everything?" the detective hushes back. "I go away for one week and you two love birds decide to take my kitchen apart!"  
"You invited us to live here!" Barry's voice is going down the stairs with his footsteps. "You said that..."  
The rest of the conversation is too muffled from the floorboards to hear. Len gets out of bed and looks out the window. The sky was mostly blue with patches of grey clouds.   
Perfect day for a little escapade.

He dresses in a red top and puts the black jeans from yesterday back on.  
In the closet he finds a green backpack. He puts a flashlight and a spare pair of clothes in it, then looks over to the bat.  
A knock on the door has him shoving the backpack into the closet and closing the door as Iris West's head peaks into his room.  
"Good morning, honey," she smiles at him. "You're already up and dressed?"  
"I heard a loud noise that woke me," Len smiles back. "Did Daddy drop something?"  
His 'step-mom' giggles, "No, that was Poppa."  
Poppa?  
"Shall we go to breakfast together?" Iris offers him her hand.   
With a shrug, he takes it and lets her hold his hand down the stairs and to the kitchen where Barry and Joe West were arguing with pots and pans in their hands.  
"These," the detective waves the pan in his left hand. "Are supposed to be hanging from the metal ceiling rack that is mysteriously missing."  
"I was worried they would slip and fall on Len," Barry frowns. He motions to the bottom cabinets, "There's plenty of room in the cabinets for all of them!"  
"Yes," Joe allows with a dramatic nod of his head. "If you stack them on and in each other, making it that much harder to get to the one you need."  
Iris loudly clears her throat, getting both men's attentions. She jerks her head in Len's direction and he pretends to play dumb to what they're doing.  
"Lenny!" Joe shoves his pans in Barry's chest to hold before crouching down and extending his arms to Len, "Come to Poppa!"  
He could leave the man like that. Really. He could.  
But Iris lets go of his hand and Barry is looking at him curiously, so Len pretends to smile wide at his 'grandfather' as he runs into his arms.  
At least he knows who 'Poppa' is now.  
"Did you miss me?" Joe asks as he hugs Len tightly.  
"Ahuh," Len almost has it sound sarcastic, but manages to make it convincingly 'cute'.  
"Put the boy down, Dad," Iris chides her father gently, going for one of the cabinets to get two bowls. "He just got over the flu yesterday. I don't want him turning purple today."  
"Were you playing time traveler again, Len?" the detective carries Len over to his chair and puts him in it. "Was the world in danger again while I was gone?"  
"Of course it was," Len grins at his 'grandpa'.   
"Naturally," Joe grins back at him. "Without your Poppa around, I bet your Daddy was following you around like a lost puppy, huh?"  
Len snorts at that visual. A grown man chasing a five year-old all over the place, big dog ears and black nose to match his tail.  
Being a kid again gave him one thing: a wild imagination.

"Alright," Iris pushes her father out of the way to put a bowl of cereal and milk in front of Len. "That's enough ego boosting for one day, Poppa."  
"It's the truth," the detective lifts his hands in surrender as he goes back to the kitchen.  
Barry has put the pans away again and is working on making a pot of coffee.  
'Wonder if they let kids drink that here?' Len eyes the machine as it hisses to life.   
Iris puts her bowl next to Len's and sits down in the open chair. She's got the same cereal as he does. When he looks up at her, she winks at him and eats a spoonful of the colored shapes.  
Maybe not all step-moms are evil.

After breakfast, Iris kisses Len on the cheek before dashing out the door to head to work. Barry is up the stairs and back, ready to go in seconds, but he hesitates at the door, eyes staring at Len as his hand keeps moving from the doorknob to his side.  
"I've got him, Barry," Joe rolls his eyes at his son-in-law. "You'll run out of sick days at this rate."  
"Right, I know," the speedster rushes over to Len at normal speed and pulls him into a quick hug. "You can have Poppa call me if you need me. Okay, buddy?"  
"Okay," Len pats his 'father' on the back slightly to help him with his separation anxiety. He must have been really badly off when he was sick.  
Not him. The other him.  
It still made his head hurt to think about it.  
"Go!" Joe orders the speedster with a pointed finger. "I took the whole day off for you. You have to go to work."  
"I'll bring home a new movie for us to watch tonight," Barry tells Len as he walks backwards toward the door. "Something funny. Like Kung-Fu mammals."  
"Go!" Joe barks again.   
Barry is out the door a second later.

"Sheesh," Joe sighs, shaking his head. He looks down at Len, "Watcha wanna do, Len?"  
'Wanna take a trip to Star City?' Len shrugs, "You know how to play Go Fish?"

If five year-olds were capable of making bets, Len would have owned the house by lunch time. His 'Poppa' had so many tells, Len couldn't help but beat him in almost every game.  
'Almost' because if you always win, adults get cranky.

"And that's game," Joe drops his pile onto the coffee table where they were playing. Len had won that hand with 18 matches. The detective smiles at him, "You wanna learn how to play blackjack after lunch, bud?"  
Len pretends like he never heard of the game, "Is it hard?"  
"Nah," Joe shrugs. "I'll teach you all the combinations. Then you and I can take your dad for all he's worth."  
This version of the detective was definitely more entertaining, "How much is that?"  
Joe chuckles, tussling Len's hair before he gets up to go to the kitchen.  
"What do you want for lunch, Lenny-my-boy?" he asks, looking through the cabinets for food. "We have...Soup, crackers, cheese, peanut butter, bread, chicken nuggets..."  
Len quickly calculates which meal would take the longest to make as he gets up and walks towards the stairs.  
"Can we have PB&J with sliced fruit?" he asks, taking the first few steps silently.  
"Hmm..." the detective's voice travels to where the fridge is. "Sure can. Do you want strawberries or watermelon?"  
There's a 50/50 chance the watermelon isn't cut up already. "Watermelon."  
"Coming right up," his 'grandpa' announces. Then, "Where did you go?"  
"I'm gonna get something from upstairs," Len shouts as he runs the rest of the way to his 'room'. "I'll be right back, Poppa!"  
"Okay..." the detective sound unsure, but he doesn't object.

Len throws on a jacket and grabs the backpack and bat. He snatches up a baseball cap sticking out from under the dresser as he heads out of the room.  
The detective is humming along as Len slowly creeps down the stairs. A short creek has him stilled on the step, but his 'grandpa' keeps humming along and after a few seconds Len resumes his way down and makes it to the bottom.  
He swings around the bottom railing, bending himself in half as he keeps close to the wall to make it to the glass bowl.  
"Woopsy!" Joe's voice once again has Len stilling. "Get your watermelon rind over here."  
The detective must've lost his grip on the melon. So it wasn't pre-cut.   
Len grins, taking the spare cash and easy to grab quarters. Thankfully, money was the same in this universe. He won't have to figure out 'the value of a dollar' while trying to get back home.  
"Len?" Joe's voice is moving again, out of the kitchen, so Len slips out of sight and crouches down all the way to the floor. "Len? What's taking so long, buddy?"  
There are footsteps on the stairs. The detective is going up to check on him.  
Len pockets the money as he gets to his feet, all the while creeping over to the front door.  
"Len?" his 'grandpa' is at the top of the steps now. "Are you okay?"  
Len opens the door enough to fit through, then closes it as quickly as he can without making a noise and runs down the front steps. On the pathway he dashes over to the tree and gets to the other side. Taking a moment to think, he decides to dart from tree to tree, pausing to hide behind them and out of the house's line of sight as he checks to see if he's being followed. He's almost a block away before the detective is out the front door and shouting for him.   
Len waits until the man's got his back to him before running from his hiding spot, around the street block, and out of sight.  
He had forgotten how much energy kids had.

As Len runs to where his universe's closest bus station is, he marvels at his own legs carrying him. They're not that long, it'll probably be another two years before he gets his first growth spurt, but they're pounding under him like a machine.  
He can't help but smile as he runs passed a woman in a pink running suit, walking her little yippy dog. The dog barely had a chance to growl at Len before he was out of its reach.

The bus station is a block over where Len remembers it being. Not a bad trade off, since he could still find it. The driver looked at him curiously as he handed over the fee to go to Star City.  
"Aren't you a little YOUNG to be riding a bus by yourself?" the immense brown beard on the driver didn't do anything to hide his concerned frown.  
Len notices a picture of a little boy, a tear taking off a third of it so that it's only the driver and the kid, clipped to the driver's visor.  
"Mommy won't let me see Daddy anymore," he pouts a little. "He's going to meet me in Star City. I want to see my Daddy."  
The driver's eyes turn to the picture as his shoulders sag in sympathy. When he turns back to Len, it's obvious what the man's going to say before he says it, "Go on."  
"Thanks, mister!" Len gives him a winning smile, then bounces to the back of the bus.  
As the bus drives away from the curb and towards its next stop, Len gets a strange feeling.   
It isn't worry, per se. It isn't even fear.  
It almost feels...like sadness?  
Len shakes his head. He must be hungry.  
He should have grabbed one of the sandwiches before he left.


	2. Joe's POV

Joe loved his daughter, he respected his son-in-law, and he adored his grandson.  
Recently, he had invited the couple to move into his house. There was plenty of space and it was at the perfect distance from Barry's job. Far enough from the city to be safe, but not too far away to travel.  
But there were lines that people should not cross.  
Francine had taught him the sanctity of a person's kitchen. Something the love birds were apparently ignorant of.

Joe had gone away for a week long seminar. When he returned the metal pan rack that he had hanging from his ceiling was gone. Along with all of his pans.  
He searched the for his cookware until he found them in the lower cabinets. Frowning, Joe reached in to pull out the one resting in the middle, but the smaller ones on top fell over and banged loudly on the ground.  
He grimaced at the pans. That was bound to wake someone up.  
"Joe!" Barry's voice came hissing from upstairs. "What are you doing down there?"  
Joe didn't appreciate the accusation in his son-in-law's voice.  
"Why did you and Iris have to move everything?" he hisses back. "I go away for one week and you two love birds decide to take my kitchen apart!"  
"You invited us to live here!" Barry's voice is coming closer now, footsteps following along with his words. "You said that we should make ourselves at home because this was our home," Barry finishes as he arrives in the kitchen.  
"Yes, it is your home," Joe had, in fact, wanted them to feel like it was their place as much as it was his. He reaches for another pot out of the lower cabinet. "And I want you two to feel free to make changes, but must you change everything?"  
"It's only pots and pans, Joe," Barry shrugs, clearly not understanding.  
"First it was the couch," Not Joe's favorite color, but his daughter chose it and it was more comfortable than the last one so he didn't complain. Joe gives Barry a pot to hold. "Then it was the photo explosion," If Joe hadn't protested against it as often, or as loudly, as he did every surface would have had some sort of photo on it. He puts the other pot in the other hand. "And now it's my pots and pans?"  
"I don't know why you're upset." Barry still doesn't get it.  
"I'm upset," Joe picks up two of the pans that landed on the ground. "Because these," he waves the one in his left hand at Barry. "Are supposed to be hanging from the metal ceiling rack that is mysteriously missing."  
"I was worried they would slip and fall on Len," his son-in-law frowns, motioning to the bottom cabinets, "There's plenty of room in the cabinets for all of them!"  
"Yes," Joe allows, because they HAD been in the cabinet, even if it they were shoved in there as disorganized piles. "If you stack them on and in each other, making it that much harder to get to the one you need."  
Iris pointedly clears her throat and Joe turns to his daughter. She jerks her head in Len's direction. The boy was staring at them strangely.  
"Lenny!" Joe shoves his pans at Barry who manages grab them without dropping them again. He crouches down and extends his arms to his grandson, "Come to Poppa!"  
The little boy brightens and runs right to him.  
"Did you miss me?" he asks, giving the little tyke a quick squeeze.  
"Ahuh," Len was being all cute, and Joe was a sucker for it.  
"Put the boy down, Dad," his daughter orders from behind. "He just got over the flu yesterday. I don't want him turning purple today."  
Joe wasn't happy to hear about the his grandson's illness. Not to mention how it wreaked havoc on his cell phone from the constant texts from Barry.  
"Were you playing time traveler again, Len?" Joe brings his grandson over to his chair to sit. "Was the world in danger again while I was gone?"  
"Of course it was," Len grins at him. Yep. Joe was a sucker for this kid.  
"Naturally," Joe grins back at him. "Without your Poppa around, I bet your Daddy was following you around like a lost puppy, huh?"  
His grandson snorts at that making Joe grin a little wider.  
"Alright," Iris pushes Joe out of the way to place the boy's breakfast in front of him. "That's enough ego boosting for one day, Poppa."  
Jealous? It's only natural that his grandson should think his detective grandfather was awesome. After all, "It's the truth."  
Instead of pushing the non-issue, Joe head to the kitchen to check on Barry's progress with the coffee machine.  
Iris and Len eat their cereal while Joe makes himself some toast. He catches Barry staring at the two with his 'goofy' face and he smiles.

After breakfast, Iris is up and away before Joe can even wish her good luck. Barry, on the other hand, is attempting to lose a race to a snail.  
When the speedster frowns at his watch, Joe glances at his own and knows it's time for him to leave. Barry is up the stairs and back in seconds; ready to go.  
But he gets stuck at the front door.

"I've got him, Barry," Joe rolls his eyes. He understands, being a father himself, the temptation and desire to stay with your kids but, "You'll run out of sick days at this rate."  
"Right, I know," Barry runs like a normal person to Len and pulls him into a hug. "You can have Poppa call me if you need me. Okay, buddy?"  
"Okay."  
Joe smiles at the two as his grandson pats his poor, worry-wart father on the back.  
Strange how it's the adult with the separation anxiety.  
When it doesn't look like his son-in-law is going to leave without further prodding, Joe takes it upon himself to order the man to, "Go!" He throws in a point of the finger, in case the hero forgot where the door was. He adds, "I took the whole day off for you. You have to go to work."  
In truth, he had an extra vacation day, but Barry didn't need to know that.  
"I'll bring home a new movie for us to watch tonight," Barry is finally heading back towards the door again, even if he is backwards. "Something funny. Like Kung-Fu mammals."  
For someone who can run so fast, Joe was tired of seeing Barry go so slow, "Go!"  
Barry runs for it.

"Sheesh," Joe sighs, shaking his head. He had forgotten how tiresome it was to deal with the hero's clingy-ness. He looks down at his grandson, "Watcha wanna do, Len?"  
Len shrugs, "You know how to play Go Fish?"

Joe, being the mature adult that he was, let his grandson win several rounds. But after his fourth consecutive loss after only about six wins of his own, he decides to call it.  
"And that's game," he drops his small pile of matches onto the coffee table where they were playing. Len had utterly defeated him with 18 matches.  
'The boy could be a card shark when he gets older.' The thought made him smile as an idea popped in his head, "You wanna learn how to play blackjack after lunch, bud?"  
Len looks confused, "Is it hard?"  
"Nah," Joe shrugs. He knew his grandson was smart enough to catch on. "I'll teach you all the combinations. Then you and I can take your dad for all he's worth."  
That'll teach the love birds to mess with his kitchen organization.  
Len still looks confused, but there's a small smile curling the edges of his lips, "How much is that?"  
Joe chuckles, tussling the boy's hair before he gets up to go to the kitchen.  
"What do you want for lunch, Lenny-my-boy?" he asks as he looks for options. "We have...Soup, crackers, cheese, peanut butter, bread, chicken nuggets..."  
"Can we have PB&J with sliced fruit?" Len asks.  
"Hmm..." Joe goes to the fridge to check for jelly and fruit. He sees both. "Sure can. Do you want strawberries or watermelon?"  
"Watermelon."  
"Coming right up," Joe takes the uncut half of fruit out of the fridge and turns to where he last saw his grandson. The boy isn't there anymore, "Where did you go?"  
"I'm gonna get something from upstairs," Len shouts, his feet already thundering up the steps. "I'll be right back, Poppa!"  
"Okay..." there's no sound of a slipped foot, so at least Len made it up the stairs without falling. Maybe he drew Joe a picture while he was gone and wants to show it to him.

Joe hums while he makes the sandwiches, keeping an ear out for a cry for help from Len. He drops the utensils in the sink after he's finishes and pulls out the cutting board; still humming along.  
He cuts the half into quarters easily enough, but as he tries to cut away the 'meat' from the rind on one of them, it slips from his hands, "Woopsy!"  
He catches it before it ends up on the floor, "Get your watermelon rind over here."  
He shakes his head at the fruit as he finishes cutting up enough for the meal.  
'Leonard is taking a long time upstairs.' Joe frowns when he doesn't hear any noise from his grandson.  
"Len?" he calls out to him as he leaves the kitchen. "Len? What's taking so long, buddy?"  
No answer.  
Joe runs up the stairs to check on him.  
"Len?" he calls out again when he makes it to the top of the stairs. "Are you okay?"  
Maybe the boy had a delayed reaction about his dad going back to work. Preparing himself for a teary-eyed grandson, Joe opens the door to the boy's room.  
It's empty.  
"Len?" Ice runs down Joe's spine as he checks under the bed and in the closet for the boy. There's no sign of him.  
Joe runs to the other rooms, thinking maybe Len was playing a trick on him.  
"Len! Are you hiding?" he shouts, moving form room to room in his desperate search. "Come out, buddy. I'm terrible at this game!"  
After he's been through the entire house twice, Joe knows the boy can't be there.  
He runs out the front of the house, a last ditch hope that the boy had gone out to play without telling him.  
"LEN!" he shouts, but he doesn't get an answer.  
He turns from one side to the other, repeating his grandson's name, but there's no sign of him and no reply.

'I will never be allowed to babysit again.' Joe shakes away the unimportant thought as he pulls out his cellphone. 'Barry is going to freak out.'  
Joe calls Barry.  
His heart skips a beat with every ring.  
"Joe? What happened? What's wrong?" his son-in-law's words come out fast and worried.  
"Don't freak out, Barry," Joe forces his voice to be calm, but he doubts it's very convincing. "I can't find Len."


	3. Barry's POV

A loud banging noise woke Barry instantly. Iris wakes as well and blinks up at him from her side of the bed.  
"Must be Dad," she yawns, with a stretch.  
Barry leaves their bedroom to whisper down at his father-in-law, "Joe! What are you doing down there?"  
You'll wake Leonard!  
"Why did you and Iris have to move everything?" Joe whispers back. "I go away for one week and you two love birds decide to take my kitchen apart!"  
What was he talking about?  
Barry heads down the stairs, still whispering, "You invited us to live here! You said that we should make ourselves at home because this was our home," he finishes, finding his father-in-law in the kitchen with a pot in his hand.  
"Yes, it is your home," Joe acknowledges, reaching for another pot out of the lower cabinet. "And I want you two to feel free to make changes, but must you change everything?"  
"It's only pots and pans, Joe," Barry shrugs. He didn't think it was that big a deal.  
"First it was the couch," Joe puts a pot in Barry's hand. "Then it was the photo explosion," he puts another pot in the other hand. The man had complained a bit when Barry went a little photo crazy. "And now it's my pots and pans?"  
Barry hears footsteps coming down the steps, "I don't know why you're upset."  
"I'm upset," his father-in-law takes a pan in each hand, "Because these," Joe waves the pan in his left hand. "Are supposed to be hanging from the metal ceiling rack that is mysteriously missing."  
"I was worried they would slip and fall on Len," Barry frowns. His son was constantly getting into things. He motions to the bottom cabinets, "There's plenty of room in the cabinets for all of them!"  
"Yes," Joe allows with a nod of his head. "If you stack them on and in each other, making it that much harder to get to the one you need."  
Iris clears her throat, so Barry turns to his wife. She jerks her head in Len's direction. His son was staring at them with big, confused eyes. He had a red top on today, but the same black pants.  
"Lenny!" Joe shoves his pans at Barry and he manages to keep them in his arms. "Come to Poppa!"  
Len runs right into his grandfather's arms.

"Did you miss me?" Joe asks as Barry stacks the pots and pans back into the cabinet.  
"Ahuh," his son can sound so cute when he talks.  
"Put the boy down, Dad," his wife tells her father as she walks around Barry to get two bowls from the higher cabinets. "He just got over the flu yesterday. I don't want him turning purple today."  
Barry swallows the lump in his throat as he remembers his little boy's red cheeks and sweat coated skin...His small chest heaving up and down for breath rapidly in between bouts of coughs...  
A hand on his shoulder stops his depressing train of thought. He looks up at the smile from Iris and instantly relaxes. Leonard was fine. He was a healthy and happy boy.  
Barry's healthy and happy boy.

He catches the end of Joe's conversation with his son, "Without your Poppa around, I bet your Daddy was following you around like a lost puppy, huh?"  
Barry is about to protest, but the comment makes Len laugh so he shakes his head instead.

"Alright," Iris pushes her father out of the way to put a bowl of cereal and milk in front of Len. "That's enough ego boosting for one day, Poppa."  
"It's the truth," the detective insists as he goes back to the kitchen.  
Barry turns his attention to the coffee machine.  
As he waits for the hissing to stop, he glances over to his wife and son. Len is smiling at Iris, which makes Barry smile.  
Two of the most important people in his life. Safe and sound. Just sitting down eating a bowl of cereal.  
Life's little perfect moments.

After breakfast, Iris kisses Len on the cheek before dashing out the door to head to work. Barry looks at his watch with an inward sigh. He runs upstairs and back, ready to go to, but he can't quite get his hand to turn the doorknob.  
He knows he's staring at Leonard, but he can't help it. What if the fever comes back? What if Joe tries to put the metal rack back up and it lands on his son's head? What if the house catches on fire? What if Len trips down the stairs?

"I've got him, Barry," Joe's voice jars Barry out of his worse-case-scenarios. "You'll run out of sick days at this rate."  
"Right, I know," he didn't actually have any sick days left. Yesterday was the last one. Any more time at home would eat into vacation days.  
He rushes over to Len at normal speed and pulls him into a hug. "You can have Poppa call me if you need me. Okay, buddy?"  
"Okay," his son's small hand patting him on the back is probably the only reason Barry had enough strength to pull away.  
"Go!" Joe orders in his 'I'm the boss' voice, adding in a pointed finger for good measure. "I took the whole day off for you. You have to go to work."  
He's right, of course. And Barry will leave.  
Just one more thing.  
"I'll bring home a new movie for us to watch tonight," he tells his son as he heads to the door. "Something funny. Like Kung-Fu mammals."  
"Go!" Joe orders again.  
Barry has to run out the door in order to get himself to leave.

Going to work feels strange after being home for any stretch of days. Barry takes a deep breath before taking the stairs two at a time to his lab at the CCPD.  
There were four boxes of evidence and a mountain of paperwork waiting for him when he arrived.  
"Welcome back to work, Barry," he tells himself with a sigh. At least he had his powers to help get through all the work faster. Otherwise, he might have to stay late in order to finish.  
And he was not going to stay late.

Barry had finished most of the paperwork on the desk and is prepping another piece of evidence for testing when his phone goes off.  
He puts the evidence back in the bag before removing one glove to answer the device.  
'Joe' is on the caller ID and his heart jumps to his throat, "Joe? What happened? What's wrong?"  
"Don't freak out, Barry," Joe's calm tone sounds far too forced. And whenever ANYONE starts a greeting with 'don't freak out' it means it is DEFINITELY time to freak out. "I can't find Len."  
The phone slips in Barry's grip as the world tilts the wrong way.  
He is never leaving the house again.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own "The Flash" or the Characters affiliated with it.
> 
> (I need a nap.)


End file.
